292 ESSAYS OF A BIOLOGIST 



In religion the danger has always been that analogy 

 and symbolism be taken for more than they are — 

 for scientific knowledge, or even for an absolute 

 certainty of some still higher order — ^and conclusions 

 then drawn from it. The conclusions follow with 

 full syllogistic majesty : but their feet are of clay — 

 their premisses are false. 



If we find that this is the case to-day, we not only 

 may but we must endeavour to make our formulation 

 correspond more closely with reality, must not be 

 content to take one thing in place of another, the 

 familiar for the unfamiliar, must set about destroying 

 the old false formulation for fear of the further harm 

 that it will do by its hold upon man's incurable habit 

 of drawing conclusions. 



Nor does this in any way interfere with or 

 detract from the private and unique experiences that 

 in the long run are religion. They remain ; but 

 they are thus hindered from becoming draped with 

 delusion, from leading their possessor into false 

 courses. 



We may put it in another way. Too often in 

 the past, religious experience has been one-sided — 

 one-or-other-sided instead of two-sided. The in- 

 tellectually-inclined, the theolqgians, frame more or 

 less adequate ideas of external reality, but fail in the 

 majority of cases to set their own house in order, 

 to organize the inner reality to react with the outer ; 

 they have theory without practice, are Dry-as-dusts. 



